I have been through a lot of hurricanes - Hazel, Agnes, Hugo, Fran, Floyd, remnants of Fay just last week to name a few, and they are nothing to be sneezed at. Serious business indeed, but then again, I have always lived above sea level. My folks left NO in '39 and never looked back.

One potentially good thing: the warm eddy in the Gulf of Mexico that helps drive intensification is farther south than during Katrina. However, that's about it. For awhile, the forecasts were drifting west, but that's ended, and they've been constant into southeast LA, southwest of NO, for more than a day. That track is devastating because it will funnel water up into Lake Ponchartrain.

I also recall someone praying for rain in CO -- not Rush. Some right-wing council. It was in the news for about 1 day about 2 weeks before the Democratic convention.

If this is a bad bad storm -- and on this path, it very well could be -- would the Republicans cancel the convention? Should they? As it is, GWB will be talking about his legacy as a hurricane lays waste to southeast LA again.

P.S. The track of Gustav as it approaches LA is very similar to that of Betsy in 1965. Betsy was a cat 4 storm at landfall. I don't recall how much damage Betsy did, but I do know it was a whopper of a storm.

It was one of the pastors in Dobson's Focus on the Family group (not Dobson himself, originally, but he reiterated it before the complaints started) that pulled the pray for rain stunt, and then claimed it was a joke after folks like Keith Olbermann went nuts over it.

I guess I'm incapable of appreciating the nuance of why one is reprehensible while the other is funny and appropriate.

(and I'm not excusing the Dobson folks for their idiocy, praying for rain is childish, and seems to me unchristian, but I'm pretty sure it's a different order of magnitude on the idiocy scale when compared to Michael Moore's recent statements)

Hopefully, more people will heed the warnings and escape, and if things turn out better than feared, hopefully they won't get complacent.

I'm hoping that the potential for complacency is the worst thing that will hit the Gulf Coast over the next few days.

Shriveled indeed, Victoria. As I wrote on the Huckabee thread to FLS, these are husks of persons. Their eagerness to throw everything except the kitchen sink, and then the kitchen sink, at their opponents, to leave no stone unturned, no rule inviolate, is nihilistic.

They remind me of nothing so much as the sort of people who put bombs in their girlfriends' luggage and their babies' nappies at airports and checkpoints, that they not be found. That drill into people's kneecaps but make every bowl of cold oatmeal served at GTMO into an atrocity. That - but we've all seen what terrorists do.

In fact I regard it as political terrorism, if that is not a misnomer. Terrible politics, terrorizing politics. I almost wonder we haven't seen another caning on the Senate floor.

What it all boils down to is "the worse, the better [for us, the revolutionary vanguard]." One of Lenin's earlier mottos, like "Hang, hang."

They just don't know what they're doing. Regrettably there is no Ghost of Christmas Future to show them what they seek to achieve.

So we gotta stop 'em, and regrettably without the use of sharks or copper-jacketed lead projectiles. (So vote, dammit!) That is the social contract, the one they tear into strips for toilet paper every day.

Is every storm now a political event? This is repulsive. It's a storm, with potentially tragic consequences. Shut the fuck up about politics, pray for everyone's safety and evacuate if you're down there. Anyone chuckling about this for any political reason on any side of the political spectrum is a revolting excuse for a human being.

Maybe--let's say part cynicism, part opportunism, part awareness, and yes, maybe even part human kindness--the RNC decides it can't put on a big show when there's a disaster and goes and does something, you know, actually useful.

And maybe this creates more positive bounce than a self-indulgent "up with us" fest does and the DNC decides--part cynicism, part opportunism, part awareness and even part human kindness--that it's just better all around to work toward a cause for a week.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

Think of all the attacks made on the Dem convention this year: Hugely wasteful, particularly bad for the environment, bad for the first amendment ("free speech zones"), and day after day of pointless speech followed by dubious analysis.

It all goes away for the party willing to say, "This is what we believe in, and this is what we're going to do about it."

Put that energy and cash--tens of millions and weeks of concentrated effort from the leaders of our country--into some sort of charitable activity.

The Dems would have this easy, since they're all about public works: Fix up a neighborhood, build some low-income housing, make a nice park with a rec center, etc.

The Reps might want to try a different approach to differentiate themselves. Build some jails or orphanages or something.

But seriously, wouldn't that be a marvelous trend that would demonstrate something about the parties? Ability to organize to do something useful?

If the levees don't hold, Obama wins. That's just how it is. The gleeful evil comments of the progressive necrophiliacs are breathtaking. The rage and hate they spew is so out of proportion and distant from reality as to be truly astonishing. That they will be even more hateful after the storm is to be expected. These people are wearyingly disappointing. They would gladly eat their own (if they had any) to win.

I do appreciate that the supporters of Mr. Perfect who comment on this site are civil. Even if the most profound truths are displayed at their home websites, I won't be reading. The extreme level of background noise radiating from their side of the Obamaverse makes discovery of any logical argument impossible.

Predictable, yet deeply depressing, that some think only of scoring politically. Lives will be lost, a unique and beautiful city faces a second destruction from which it may never recover, but Kos is delighted.

My church is still providing ongoing support for a community that was devastated in Katrina (in Mississippi), because it's still not recovered, despite the hard work and commitment of residents. I know that situation is repeated in various places in LA as well. So tragic (Sisyphean?) to think of the potential for steps forward being stopped in their tracks, or rubbed out as if they never were. Mother Nature can be a real bitch.

Dumb, irrelevant trivia: Katrina (and Althouse, who had been the recipient of my e-mailed comments about the pre-storm media coverage, and therefore encouraged me) is what led me to create reader_iam and sign up on blogger to comment, after years of reading/lurking. My first comments here were about Katrinia, and how its local media covered it in the days leading up to its strike, and also the low-key reactions of its officials (esp. Blanco) in those days, as evidenced by what they reported to be doing at the time.

RIA, the task in New Orleans is Sisyphean, because putting a large city on ground that is below sea level AND near the sea is guaranteed disaster. Add to that the citizens of New Orleans reelected the Mayor that did such a horrible job last time and the disaster will be compounded. New Orleans has two pluses this time around: people still remember the last bad storm so they're more likely to evacuate, and they did elect a new governor who will hopefully do a better job than the last one. But the city will be underwater again, if not from this storm then from some future storm. I can guarantee this because water runs downhill, despite the dictates of politicians.

This thing is going to be a nightmare. We can all hope that the federal government will have their act together this time. It sounds from initial coverage that Bush has been trying to keep on the ball and that FEMA is already at work, so there are good reasons to hope that the response will be there this time. For now, we can hope for this glorious city and its brave people.

Sadly, it's interesting that this apolitical tragedy is discussed on this blog almost entirely as an opportunity to attack Democrats. Yeah, a few Democrats said revolting things about political capitalization on this tragedy. Don't you all act like Republicans are the noble ones who care only about the wellbeing of the poor members of the communities that will be ravaged. Using this opportunity to attack Democrats is no better than the Democrats' using this opportunity to trash Republicans.

It's a FUCKING HURRICANE. Get your heads out of your ASSES and contribute something to Red Cross and shut the fuck up about the other party for just once.

So Beth, apologies, but perhaps this explains why I am so cynical about New Orleans. I DO hope you guys come through it okay, I'm just already resenting the way your side will exploit another "Katrina" for political traction.

Molly: Using this opportunity to attack Democrats is no better than the Democrats' using this opportunity to trash Republicans.

Uh no Molly, there is no equivalence. We're denouncing the many many Democrats who lied about what happened in NO and exploited the devastation for a bump in the polls: "Democrats are desperately hoping for another New Orleans hurricane that will kill thousands of people and thus distract attention from the Republican Convention"

Once again DTL proves that he hasn't the faintest idea what he's talking about. Ever hear of Southern Decadence, DTL? (it was this weekend, by the way, and those who went to SD are now having to flee like everyone else). But to those who think like DTL, non-Manhattanites have no value other than as political pawns.

The entire Mississippi coast was obliterated for one mile from the coast. How come you never hear that there weren't the same problems that La. had? How come they rebuilt successfully? Local leadership. The lack thereof caused the problems,not FEMA. The government is not your savior.

He had a better riff on disasters as entertainment years before but I don't seem to have it on the hard drive. Maybe it was before I had a good recording setup off the air.

Interesting fact always needs repeating - 10,000 Americans die every day, and 100,000 people in the world, in round numbers, disaster or no disaster. There's not a lot of caring.

Hmm, John and Ken had a bit on not caring somewhere the other day, its being a survival mechanism ... real audio.

I think the opposite, that caring is a survival mechanism, but only as it relates to your own neighborhood. The media hook into that and make everywhere your neighborhood, using it as porn to draw your eyes to paying advertisers.

People like to watch disasters. It paid off survival-wise when it was local. The media use the neighborhood concern instinct to attract you to what is not in your neighborhood, where your interest is empty and purely for your own entertainment.

I'm not going to take any political bait here. I just hope things turn out better this time then they did last time. Growing up on the Gulf Coast, I've seen more than a few of these storms, but this one looks like a particularly bad one, and New Orleans doesn't need to take another one.

One though. Ding-ding, this is the dumbass comment of the day: And sorry - but there aint that many gay people in New Orleans.

I'm not gay, but I can tell you, New Orleans is a major capital of gay culture. It has been for decades, and has long been a place for gay tourism or a place where Southern gay people moved to after they left the intolerant podunk towns they grew up in. For someone to make a comment like tha shows a level of ignorance and stupidity that is astounding.

I'm beginning to think I'm a better gay man than you are, Downtownlad, and I've never slept with or tempted to sleep with a guy!